Microsoft IE9 Platform preview available for download

Microsoft today launched the Platform preview of their latest browser Internet Explorer 9. Platform preview basically means that it is a browser without the user interface which you would normally associate a browser with. It is basically a developer version released for them to take a look at the latest features of this new IE9.

Changing the default save format in Microsoft Office 2007 appplications

Microsoft(MS) Office is one widely used office applications around the computing world. With MS Office 2007, the file formats of its applications changed. That is, for eg, powerpoint files were earlier saved as .ppt format while it became .pptx now. Similar with other office applications whose file formats changed with the new version.

It's a common notion that latest is always better but in this case it was not so. People who had saved their office files in latest 2007 format found their files incompatible in computers running 2003 office applications. Thus, it put many a people under inconvenience. So it is better to use the 2003 office file formats till everyone is familiar with 2007. While saving, we may select 'save as' and then select 'type' as 2003 file format(ppt, doc etc) and click on OK. That will work but many of us are careless to remember doing that all the time, or worse still, many new users don't even know about selecting the type and all that stuff. So it's better to keep 2003 file format as default rather than the 2007 one.

I will show an example using MS Word 2007. I will change the format from docx to doc. The images below show step by step procedure.

Changing colour scheme of Microsoft Office 2007 applications

 2007Many people have been asking me frequently how to change the colour scheme of MicroSoft(MS) Office applications. By default it is silver in colour like the one shown below.

I have posted stuff using MS Office applications on various forums and many people have asked how did I make mine Black instead of the default silver(I think so). Actually it is very easy and no big trick is involved. Just that most people overlook the settings required to make the changes.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 RC

I do some casual programming in c++ and vb.net and I use Visual Studio 2008 for it. Recently I wanted a copy of that software to install it on my home computer and found that the dvd had caught a lot of scratches and it won't install the software completely. I had heard weeks ago, that Microsoft (MS) had launched a new version of their Visual Studio software and that they were giving it out for free at the moment, but didn't pay much attention to it until now.